The Arab Politics of Iraq During the Baath Party Rule: Between Theory and Practice

The paper analyzes one of the priority aspects of Iraq's foreign policy during the reign of the Ba’ath Party (1968-2003), relations with Arab countries. This policy was elevated to the rank of the most important state strategy and was given a special role in the scale of foreign policy priorities. It was allocated to an exceptional part of state politics, called “Arab politics”, “al-siyasa al-arabiyya”. The research examines the basic ideological and theoretical principles of Ba’athism, which formed the basis of “Arab politics” and on the basis of which the ruling Baath of Iraq built its relations with Arab countries. In this vein, it considers the fundamental principle of Ba'athism, the idea of "Arab unity", which constituted the first element of the party's slogan "Unity, freedom, socialism" and within the framework of which, at certain stages, Ba'ath sought to closely interact with Arab countries. Analyzing official documents, the author concludes that on the issue of Arab unity, Iraq could only unite with those countries that had political systems identical to it. Based on this logic, it becomes clear that among the Arab countries with which Iraq shared common ideological and political principles, Syria, as well as one of the centers of Arab nationalism, Egypt could be natural partners of Iraq within the framework of integration processes in the Arab world. In addition, these countries were among the countries that Iraq considered as opposing Israel and with which it primarily sought to establish close cooperation, including in the military sphere, to resolve the Palestinian problem. It was noted, however, that the radicalism of official Baghdad on this issue not only placed Iraq in isolation in the Arab world, but also sometimes created obstacles to inter-Arab integration and cooperation. Often in his policies there was a deep gap between the declared principles and their practical implementation. Within the framework of “Arab politics”, the article examines in detail Iraqi-Syrian and Iraqi-Egyptian bilateral relations throughout the entire period of the Baath Party’s rule in Iraq, revealing their most characteristic features and peculiarities.